Gustavus Hines

Life on the Plains of the Pacific Gustavus Hines

If this veaume does not commend itself to the favorable considerations of the reading public, it will not be owing to any deficiency of material in the possession of the author, to enable him to furnish a most interesting and instructive work. Though his opportunities for the acquirement of that kind of knowledge resulting from observation, and necessary to qualify one to instruct and entertain mankind, during seven years of constant journeyings in various parts of the world, both by sea and land, have been perhaps greater than usually falls to the lot of even authors of books of travel, yet, conscious of his want of the requisite qualifications to array his work in that fascinating drapery necessary to charm the reader at once into an unqualified approval, the author casts himself upon the public with all due deference. The principal apology necessary to offer for the publication of this work, is a desire to connect with entertainment the promotion of a more extensive and particular knowledge of those interesting portions of the world where it has been the privilege of the author to travel, and make his observations. While the world is literally teeming with fictitious publications, here is presented a volume of facts, for the most of which the author is alone responsible ;and in the absence of the tinsel adorning of a glowing and high-sounding style, the truthfulness of what is narrated is the principal merit to which the work is entitled. The History of theO regon Mission, to which the first chapter of the work is devoted, has been drawn from the most reliable sources, and, principally from the short notes of the lateR ev. Jason Lee, and the Journal of the late Cyrus Shepherd, the first missionary teacher in Oregon. This part, the author flatters himself, will supply the Christian public with a needful desideratum, with respect to the true character of th
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)